CENTENARY

I have written one hundred poems
to Damocles, my brother,
to spikenard doused in dew.
To lintels, bones, and trophies.
The wind that slouches through.

I will write one hundred more.
I will hang them in the cellar.
I will pack them in with camphor.

I'll add another hundred
like the kisses of Catullus.
Deck the figures on the mantle.
I will gird their necks and ankles
like my heart, girded by Lowell
and Guillaume Apollinaire.
As dew sloughs off my garden
into the earth and air.

A poem a day!

Hey guys!

My name is Talia, I'm a sophomore at Harvard, and my aim is to write a poem a day and put 'em all up here. This may result in some rushed, perfunctory poems, but a rushed, perfunctory poem is better than none. I had to name it "A Poem A Day From Harvard" because "A Poem A Day" was already taken, but rest assured my project will (hopefully) not be limited to self-serving, Harvard-worshipping crap.

Anyway, here's the first poem! I was reading Saul Bellow's "Ravelstein" and he mentions Eros a lot, specifically conflating Eros and the sun, so I was thinking about it.


"Eros is a sniper now in green"

Eros is a sniper now. In green
and proximal to the sun
burning his boots on the hot tar Eros aims,
piercing the serious ribs of the young,
and the light weeps like a cornet in his hair.

In a treble of light Eros fires outnumbered
by the unbloomed bellies of those who pass, ears coiled in sound,
eyes pinned to small lights that do not heed the sun. O love,
the serious jaw of Eros is set
and his young thumb urges the gun.